Global Economy

Our Top Ten blog posts by readership in 2017. This post was originally posted on April 24, 2017.

My Exfam colleague Kate Raworth’s book Doughnut Economics is launched today, and I think it’s going to be big. Not sure just how big, or whether I agree with George Monbiot’s superbly OTT plug comparing it to Keynes’s General Theory. It’s really hard to tell, as a non-economist, just how paradigm-changing it will be, but I loved it, and I want everyone to read it.

Down to business – what does it say? The subtitle, ‘Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist’, sets out the intention: the book identifies 7 major flaws in traditional economic thinking, and a chapter on each on how to fix them. The starting point is drawings – working with Kate was fun, because whereas I think almost entirely in words, she has a highly visual imagination – she was always messing around with mind maps and doodles. And she’s onto something, because it’s the diagrams that act as visual frames, shaping the way we understand the world and absorb/reject new ideas and fresh evidence. Think of the way every economist you know starts drawing supply and demand curves at the slightest encouragement.Her main target is GDP (the standard measure of national economic output), and its assumptions – an open systems approach to economics that ignores planetary boundaries as it promotes economic growth. Her breakthrough moment while at Oxfam was coming up with ‘the doughnut’ – two concentric rings representing the planetary ceiling and minimum standards for all human beings. The ‘safe and just space’ between the two rings is where our species needs to be if it wants to make poverty history without destroying the planet.

When Kate came up with the doughnut in a highly influential 2012 paper for Oxfam, my non-visual mind failed to grasp its full value. After all, wasn’t this just a restatement of the idea of sustainable development? But it went viral, especially at the UN, because it allowed activists and policy makers to visualize both the threats and how they were trying to overcome them.

Despite an acceleration of global economic activity, potential output growth (the growth that can be sustained at full employment and capacity) has slowed. The slowdown reflected weak investment growth, slowing productivity growth, and demographic trends. These forces will continue, and, unless countered, will depress global potential growth further over the next ten years.

Sources: World Bank estimates; Haver Analytics; Penn World Tables; World Development Indicators, World Bank.
Notes: A. Based on production function approach, GDP-weighted averages for a sample of 30 advanced economies and 50 EMDEs.

As headwinds ease for commodity exporters, growth across emerging and developing economies is expected to pick up. However, risks to the outlook remain titled to the downside, such as the possibility of disorderly financial market adjustment or rising geopolitical tensions.

A major concern in the subdued pace of potential growth across emerging market and developing economies, which is expected to further decline in the next decade. Structural reforms will be essential to stem this decline, and counter the negative effects of any future crisis that could materialize.

The broad-based recovery should continue

Global growth accelerated markedly in 2017, supported by a broad-based recovery across advanced economies and emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs), and it is expected to edge up in 2018.

2018 is here, and we hope your new year is off to a positive start! Thank you for being a part of the global movement to help end poverty. For every like, share, “heart”, retweet, you name it, thanks for engaging with our content!

We were also very impressed to see how strongly you feel about preserving our planet. During last month’s One Planet Summit, several of you replied to the news of the World Bank’s announcement on phasing out financing of oil and gas exploration, with positivity. For example @RalienBekkers said: “Great, everyone should follow”:

Metals and mineral prices gained less than 1 percent. A large gain in iron ore (up 12 percent) was offset by declines in zinc and nickel. Precious metals prices declined 2 percent, led by a 1 percent decline in gold.

The pink sheet is a monthly report that monitors commodity price movements.

Energy and raw material price indexes increased in December while beverage and fertilizer prices declined sharply.

Maintaining and restoring ocean ecosystems – or ‘ocean health’ – is synonymous with growing ‘ocean wealth,’ according to a soon-to-be published report by the World Bank and European Union. With rapid population growth, limited land and fewer terrestrial resources to house, feed and provide citizens with their energy needs, coastal nations across South Asia are looking seaward. In doing so, countries are clueing in on the fact that sustainably managing and developing ocean spaces is critical to a nation’s economic advancement.

Thinking Blue - thinking how best to sustainably tap ocean spaces as new sources of sustainable growth and transition to a blue economy - is new, although South Asian nations have used the sea for food and trade for centuries. Five years ago, few had an inkling of the emerging importance of the term 'blue economy.'

By late 2017, at the Second International Blue Economy Dialogue hosted by the Government of Bangladesh in Dhaka, interest in what the blue economy is and why it matters is at an all-time high and rising. Perhaps this not surprising.

For years, the transport sector has been looking at solutions to reduce its carbon footprint. A wide range of stakeholders has taken part in the public debate on transport and climate change, yet one mode has remained largely absent from the conversation: maritime transport.

Tackling emissions from the shipping industry is just as critical as it is for other modes of transport. First, international maritime transport accounts for the lion’s share of global freight transport: ships carry around 80% of the volume of all world trade and 70% of its value. In addition, although shipping is considered the most energy-efficient mode of transport, it still uses huge amounts of so-called bunker fuels, a byproduct of crude oil refining that takes a heavy toll on the environment.

Several key global players are now calling on the maritime sector to challenge the status quo and limit its climate impact. From our perspective, we see at least three major reasons that can explain why emissions from maritime transport are becoming a global priority.

When we talk about the future of work, it is important to include perspectives, ideas and solutions from young people as they are the driving force that can shape the future. As we saw at the recent Youth Summit 2017, the younger, digitally-savvy generations —whether they are called Millennials, Gen Y, or Gen Z— shared solutions that helped tackle global challenges. The two-day event welcomed young people to discuss how to leverage technology and innovation for development impact. In this post, we interviewed —under a job-creation perspective—finalists of the summit's global competition.

I had the privilege recently to spend an unscheduled hour of discussion with a group of young Tunisians who were visiting our offices. As often, on these occasions it is hard not to get captured by the energy and impatience of the young people in this region. It gives hope that entrepreneurial spirit is really alive and well in a country where reliable private sector services remain otherwise hard to come by, let alone public ones. If one combines the energy of youth with the message in a recent (equally energetic) speech by the Minister of Development to a large group of investors, one gets a sense that Tunisia is, indeed, looking ahead and not to the past.

Yet, as always, reality is far more complex, and often we are confronted with a much gloomier picture of a country that is perceived as, economically, turning inward. This is the case even more so now, as Tunisia is coming under immense pressure to get its public finances in order. This has generated some decisions that go right against the message of openness and dynamism that one gets when meeting with young Tunisians. It all begs the question, for a newcomer like myself, which of the parallel universes is the real one, and, as in a movie, which one ultimately will prevail.

Over the past two decades, almost every developing country has adopted some form of public finance management (PFM) reform plan, with many currently pursuing second or third generation plans. Over the same period, development partners have provided substantial support – a total of over $20 billion since 2002. However, some countries have seen strong progress, while others have seen little, or have even experienced backsliding (see Graph 1 a and b).